If there is a plauge, or widespread flu...you will die.

So, I'm not one for end of the world predictions, I'm not one for saying "The world is going to explode on December 12, 2012" and I don't really
know when world war 3 is going to break out, if it ever is, or how humanity is going to die, if they ever will.
BUT. If the world is ever faced with something like the Stand from Stephen King...you can bet your life that we are going to be dead in no time.

I thought about this in my school. At certain points through the year, somebody gets a cold, and over a period of 2-3 weeks it seems like more then
half the school is sniffling and sneezing and...complaining. Most of us work in a school like enviroment- meaning you are in constant contact, in
passing or direct, with another human being. And if the plauge were to go around...well, see you later!

Hmm. Every year there is wide spread flu. There were 3 flu pandemics last century and one already is marching through the globe. My parents, me and
few other billions made it so far.
Plague is easily treated with antibiotics, resistance so far is not an issue.
If you want to think doom and gloom - think of Ebola or similar real killers. However even in this case ,with several billions maybe dead - people
would still survive.
Now if we blow our planet up.....
Most serious danger to us are ....pam pam pam.... ourself.

Not necessarily. Yeah, I may get this plague or widespread flu, but that doesn't mean instant death. I'm with you 100% on how contagious these
things are and how they seem to just spread like wild fire, but I think a lot of it depends on a person immune system. If it's strong, it's likely
you'll feel like crap and might wish you were dead, but simply contracting it doesn't necessarily = death. There's a "widespread flu" where I'm
at right now, but so far, everybody is still alive. Some schools have closed down and such, but people are living to tell about it.

I work as an English teacher in South-east Asia. My school was closed down twice because of some students having symptoms of SK1, aka Swine flu. The
first time the school closed for a week, so that the school could be disinfected, there were only about 10 students with symptoms.

The second time the school closed for a week (about a month after the first closure of the school), there were over 60 student's with symptoms of
SK1. The majority of these students were from the year that I taught. The reason the school closed down was because the local hospital phoned the
school and said they had a high number of students omitted to A&E from my school with symptoms of SK1.

My school has over 5000 students and the flu spread very quickly. I have never worn a face mask and I don't think I caught the flu. But I did get a
serious migraine (never had one ever before). I was sick for about 3 days and eventually went to the local hospital and they said it was the flu, but
after a painkiller injection I was feeling much better a day later. This happened the first time the school closed and I haven't gotten sick again.

I agree that the flu pandemic can spread very quickly. Whatever the conspiracies are about the vaccination, the majority of the school have been
vaccinated and the number of flu cases have dropped dramatically.

However, in the town I work in, there are about 4 big schools and at least two students have died from flu related symptoms, they were no older than
13 years of age.

Well this is what I like to hear at 7:30 a.m just brightens my whole day

I love the movie Stand from King. It was like Wow. I need to rent that again!

It is easy though, a bottle breaks on a bus, the bus disperses, with all deemed contagious now, one gets on a plane to hong kong, the other to las
vegas nevada, and so on and so on, visiting family and such

What's ironically funny - or, maybe not ha ha funny - is that King considered the 70's swine flu moderate outbreak an accidental bioengineered
release into the public, which was where (I believe I once heard him state) he got the idea for The Stand.

Plague and flu aren't exactly in the same field. The flu runs rampant every year and millions survive. But in this day and age, if there was a plague
pandemic, I'd sure as # look to one gov't or another.

Plague and Flu aren't even in the same taxonomic phyla. The plague is a bacteria, while Influenza is a virus. Two totally different types of
organisms.

The Plague isn't gone, by the way. It infects about 13 people in the US each year on average, and just about 3,000 people worldwide. Mortality rate
is about 50-90% if untreated, however if proper medical care is sought, this number drops to about 15% mortality rate.

So assuming every patient who contracts the plague gets proper care, it only kills about 200 people on average annually on the high end. The flu kills
far more people per year. However, other such diseases like Tuberculosis, Malaria, and HIV are real devastates.

Tuberculosis... this disease (also a bacterial species) is still a scourge which needs to be remedied effectively. .It infects about 9 million people
annually, and causes 2 million deaths worldwide. At any given time, TB has infected about 1/3rd of the human population. The worst part, however, is
that TB is most prevalent in countries with substandard or non-existent health care systems. It's hit Africa particularly hard where the HIV pandemic
has weakened the constitutions of many in the population. The Coinfection of HIV and TB severely reduce the life expectancy of patients, and is one of
the main killers of HIV patients.

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